


Forlorn

by Arisusan



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Vignette, a small scene that literally can't exist in our current continuity but whatevs, drift still has that good old self-loathing, not terribly romantic if you don't want to read it like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 14:47:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15172985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arisusan/pseuds/Arisusan
Summary: A few million years of existential angst are hard to kick. Drift's decided to skip town (a classic coping mechanism), and drops by the medbay to say goodbye. Ratchet, for his part, isn't making it easy. Takes place some time after Overlord but before Dark Cybertron, and doesn't fit in with the current continuity like at all. Just pretend it's in a pocket universe or something.





	Forlorn

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't even...good...but...anyway, I decided to post it. Written and edited in a haze, like everything else I write. Mostly I needed Ratchet to suck it up and tell Drift what they both need to know without any...I guess you could call it salt-coating. The opposite of sugarcoating. Making things sound grumpier than they actually are.

Ratchet sighed, more weary than annoyed.

"Right. It's your decision to make, so I'm not going to pretend I have any say in this."

_Klik-klak_  went the joint of the spare arm as Ratchet bent and unbent it on the work bench in front of him.  _Creak_. It would need a bit of oil, but no loosening—you wanted to be able to hold it firmly in position, is what he'd been told. Drift reached for the small medical pump and rag over on the edge of the work station, handing them over as Ratchet opened his hand.

"Thank you for that."

_Shing_. The joint whispered this time instead of screaming, and was placed crosswise on top of the three arms that had been catalogued today. Spare parts had a mixed effect on the atmosphere, radiating the soft, rotting aura of death as well as the clean, cold promise of recovery. Another arm was picked up from its pile and straightened on the table for an examination.

"I didn't say I was going to let you off easy. You're leaving in, what, three joors?"

Drift nodded smoothly, though Ratchet hadn't looked up from his work. "Yes. I figured it would be less trouble if I went quickly."

"Hah." Ratchet hesitated for a moment, mumbling something inaudible before speaking. "You may be right about that."

"It's what I believe to be true," he answered, uncrossing his servos and bracing them on the counter behind him. Open posture and a little bait should get the old medic to be more co-operative. Or at least turn around.

It didn't make sense to want  _his_ opinion over anyone else's, a mech he could never agree with, but the connection was there. If Rodimus was the future, then Ratchet must be the past. His past.

Sometimes, he ran the numbers in the privacy of his own brain, and decided that Ratchet's kind deeds and kind words had resulted in the net loss of thousands of lives. Maybe they would have been killed under a different Decepticon, or maybe they would have suffered something worse than the quick carnage Deadlock had dealt out. Ratchet had said he thought about those words, in a voice small enough to be honest.

Drift didn't know what he meant by that, whether he regretted it or was glad of it, but he believed that Ratchet still thought of it as a good deed. In his world, each life was something irreplaceable and unique, and at the same time completely insignificant. How Ratchet lived with it, he didn't know. He'd thought like that once himself. The difference was, he hadn't lived—or even survived. Twice he'd been reborn before he was able to do that.

The never-ending clang of instruments on trays and plating slowed.

"Believe," Ratchet said, at length. "You're trying to get on my nerves."

"Even you can't empirically measure a level of 'trouble,'" Drift joked, unable to see his face or read his expression. Even his aura was controlled.

Ratchet shook his head, and huffed. A blue-and-grey patterned spare arm was bent back and forth over the work station, and put to the side, before another one was taken. "I know, I know. That wasn't what I was thinking of."

"What was it, then?"

Screws were tightened, oil applied as Drift watched from a dozen feet away. The blue-grey arm was tested and worked just fine, but once it was tossed on top of the pile Ratchet stopped. He was old, and now he was silent.

Not that old in years, mind you, in  _experience_. It was way too easy for to forget how close they were in age. In Ratchet's world, where things were finite, most of his kind words had been used up on dead mechs, that or lowlifes and failures who went back to the boosters the minute they were cleared because  _there was nothing else left._ Or worse.

Drift would just have to accept it if there were none left for him.

"I don't exactly plan on dying, but if there are any last points you need to make…"

The silence on the Ratchet's end was now punctuated by soft clicks as the work station was tidied, each stylus and scalpel placed precisely.

Ratchet stayed unusually quiet as he turned to face Drift with a— _surprising_  expression in his optics.

Drift had expected fatigue, exasperation at a believer, maybe disapproval or pity for a Decepticon, or possibly nothing at all for a lowlife. What this  _was_  was gentler than all those. Something that took them both back to a time before the war had made them old.

They stood facing each other, Drift leaning back on a work bench and Ratchet with his servos down at his sides, hiding nothing.

"What I meant was: there are some things you need to know. Not believe, not guess at, know for a  _fact_."

Drift raised an eyebrow. "Please don't tell me we have another Phase Sixer on board."

The kindness on Ratchet's face faded, but to his surprise it didn't disappear. Oh, dear. He'd screwed up.

"If you said that at literally any other time, I'd hit you so hard your optics would short out."

"I don't doubt it. Sorry."

"I'm going to say some things now now, and neither of us is going to start up an argument until I'm done. Understand?"

"I…" Drift hesitated, unable to get a read on his aura. Whatever it was, he was serious about it. "Sure. Yes. I won't ruin it."

"This isn't a moment," Ratchet said, sterner now. "It's not a lecture either, if you're worried about that. It's just going to be me talking and you listening. Well, you hearing. Don't know if you've ever listened to a thing I say."

"I told you, I won't ruin it."

"All right." Ratchet leaned back on the work station, and held up a finger. "Let's get this over with. One: death shouldn't be an option for you."

Maybe it was just the usual medic-speak, but after what they'd been through—Overlord, and everything else—it stung. He didn't want to die. Not really. But sometimes…someone had to. They both knew that, and Ratchet should know damn well it was better Drift than anyone else. Rewind, Pipes, and the rest of them didn't have the same blood on their hands.

"No noble sacrifices." There was a pause and a click as Ratchet reset his vocalizer. "No giving one life for many or any of that bullshit— _you_ can't die. You've got a unique skill set, and Cybertron, or the universe, or whatever world you think you're in, it can't afford to lose that just yet."

_What do you care_ , he nearly asked, and didn't. He'd promised to be good. And a part of him realized, fighting against a few million years of self-loathing, that Ratchet  _meant_ it. What was it he'd said, when they stared death in the face? And he'd asked him to run, knowing he could only buy time against Overlord?

_Your faith, your sword, and your friend_.

How could he have forgotten?

"Two: you've always got a home here." The words cut through him. "I'm not trying to talk you into staying. I'm trying to tell you that if you need somewhere to lie low, or—I don't know. If you need a place to stay, you're welcome here. Anyone says different, they'll find themselves without a surgeon."

For a moment, he was glad Ratchet couldn't see his aura. Whatever it was that welled up in his spark casing was spilling over and making it flare wildly. Primus, what a mess. He'd been so eager to be hated that he'd imagined Ratchet had nothing left for him, and conveniently forgot all his kindness. Not just then but now, standing in front of him and telling him everything he wanted to hear for so long.

He strained against the cables in his servos. This was what he needed; he wouldn't ruin it by reaching out and asking for more than he deserved.

"Three: you've got value. You're special. You're not a cog in the machine, you're not a tool to be used, you're Drift and you're worth as much as anyone else. As everyone else." Ratchet sounded almost angry. Passionate. That was the word. He was a preacher in his own right. "I meant what I told you, when you met me. I didn't know slag back then, but I've learned, and I'm telling you that you're worth a lot more than what you can contribute to the cause. You need to remember that."

Ratchet's optics bored into his, and at the same time looked somewhere beyond them. Without thinking, he let the colour of his optics shift.

"Why are you doing that?"

"It's—it reflects the situation best."

Ratchet leaned forward and eyed him sceptically, shoulders turning slightly to the left. A defensive gesture.

"Just because I don't believe in what you do doesn't mean I don't know anything about it. You should be pale blue at worst."

Drift knew Ratchet had done some research on various religions during his time, but this was the first time he'd addressed Spectralism directly with anything other than an attack.

"What does 'worst' mean?"

"You know. Sloppiest. This isn't a moment, I told you, it's a monologue."

"Very well."

He let Ratchet take control, and shifted to an analytical white. But…why would he be so concerned with the colour? It was just a way of harmonizing with the world, not of shaping it. He couldn't deny that both of them had made themselves vulnerable. That he felt that his spark had swelled so much that Ratchet could nearly reach out and grab it out of its casing.

"Better?"

"Better."

A small amount of tension left Ratchet's frame, but his aura stayed tightly drawn around him.

"I could lecture at you all day—you know I would—but since you're leaving soon, I'll keep it short. There's just one more thing."

He ex-vented quietly, and shrank back. This was not a white moment, it was soft gold.

"Thank you for respecting my time."

"You don't—" Ratchet frowned, shaking his head. "You don't need to thank me for that. That's what everyone's supposed to do."

"I still appreciate it."

"You're hopeless."

Drift felt that Ratchet wasn't keen on saying what he'd planned, and tried to change the atmosphere. Just a little easing on tension in his own frame as well as his aura, and looking somewhere to the left of Ratchet's optics would take away some of what might be weighing on him. The small kindness was the only thing he could do to return what he'd just been given.

"I know."

The tension between them thrummed briefly, as if a taut cable somewhere had been plucked, then faded as Ratchet crossed his servos again.

"There are people here who care about you," he said softly.

Drift couldn't keep the shock out of his face, even if he kept his optics white.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," grumbled Ratchet. "I'm one of them. Rodimus is another. Percy's fond of you, too. Most of them are."

It took a lot of self-control not to mention the exile, and how willing they all were to believe it was all him. He wanted them to, he needed them to, so that things would go as they should, but that didn't mean it didn't sting.

"That's why they got so worked up when they thought you'd betrayed them," Ratchet went on, reading his thoughts. "It's because they felt like you were a friend. So don't you ever forget that."

"I won't," he lied, hoping it was the right answer.

But seeing the concern in Ratchet's optics, he could tell that it wasn't. Ratchet said it was true, and maybe on some level he knew it was true.

It was just  _believing_ it that was the problem.

"Oh, Drift."

It wasn't pitying, it wasn't disappointed, it was just a tired reminder that millions of years later he was still a few steps away from where they'd met— _NO_. He wasn't falling into that trap again. Ratchet had seen him grow, and change. Ratchet wouldn't dismiss him like that.

"I'm sorry," he said, wishing there was something else he could tell him. "I can't help it."

This only seemed to make it worse. Ratchet pushed off the bench and stepped forward. Once. Twice. They couldn't avoid optic contact without looking to the side.

"Don't apologize for that. Don't you  _dare_."

"You've said that to me before."

They stood there for a second, optics locked and frames frozen, until something  _changed_. His aura, or Ratchet's, he didn't know. They were so close even he had trouble making it out.

Ratchet ex-vented.

"Drift," he said quietly, "You can say no, but I'm going to ask you if I can touch you."

For a moment, he couldn't think. He paused and skipped back over the memory, replaying the audio. Yes—yes, it was Ratchet, scans confirmed the spark signature, and that's what he'd said.

The answer came easy. "You can."

Ratchet reached up and gently placed a hand on his shoulder, and this time he couldn't help shifting his optics to a pinkish violet. The hand slowly slid sideways and up his neck, the palm lying flat so that Ratchet's thumb lay against his jaw. Primus. He'd fought armies, but one touch and it took everything he had not to collapse.

Frag it. Ratchet had seen him at his lowest time and time again. He would never judge Drift for sinking into it.

"I know," Ratchet said, stroking his thumb over his jawline, "I know there are some things I can't do. Things I can't fix, or even help with."

"No one can," Drift answered, letting the static leak in. No one that grouchy should be able to look that kind. There had to be some law, one of Magnus' regulations.

"Oh, I know. But I'm a doctor. I fix things. I need to." If this were anyone else, he'd think Ratchet sounded helpless and alone. "And when I can't, it's…"

"I know."

He raised his own hand, gently wrapping it around Ratchet's forearm.

"You've made it clear I can't help you with whatever's going on. I respect that." Ratchet's optics slipped to the side for a moment, searching for something more to say. Or maybe for the words he needed to say it.

After a moment, he met Drift's gaze again.

"But, if there's anything else you know I can help with, I'll do it. No questions, no arguing. Anything.  _Anything._ "

All he could do was stand there, and stare.  _Come with me_ , he could have said.  _Ask me to stay here. Say everything you've just told me, and ask me to answer._  But what Ratchet had said and what he had done was more than Drift could handle, especially now.

He just tightened his grip on Ratchet's arm, and nodded.

"Oh, Drift," sighed Ratchet for the second time that cycle, "Sometimes, I wish I'd never met you."

"Why?"

"It would have made things easier."

Now Ratchet's second stolen hand rose to his face, fingers wrapping around his cheek and the thumb running along the ridge below his optic, pressing so, so gently. A surgeon's hand. Still, he held back, standing close and never moving forward. Waiting. He knew Drift, and he knew what had been done to him, what he would never let happen again. He would not go further without permission.

Drift hadn't expected this, hadn't wished for it, hadn't kept it as anything other than a sad and lonely late-night comfort in the back of his cluttered mind, but he  _wanted_ it.

"Kiss me," he whispered.

And Ratchet did.

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me if I've screwed up on spelling/grammar/typos because quite frankly I zoned out halfway through editing


End file.
